Olney

SHAKESPEARE LITE The lowdown -- So you think Richard III is one of Shakespeare's more gruesome tragedies? Think again. Opening tomorrow at the Theatre Project, The Richard Revue: Light Reflections on Murder spotlights the killer monarch and an emcee accomplice performing a collection of scenes that feature Richard singing and dancing, being interviewed on TV and competing in a pie-eating contest. New Vaudevillian Bob Berky and puppeteer Eric Bass created and perform this cabaret adaptation of Shakespeare's play.

COLLEGE PARK -- The last thing Sgt. Joshua Heskett saw before shrapnel ripped into his face was the suspicious car, one of three his Maryland Army National Guard unit had been told to watch for last August on a highway near Baghdad. "The car lurched forward and exploded, and it all went into slow motion," Heskett, 27, recalled yesterday. The car "expanded like a balloon and thousands of sparkles. ... I thought I was going to die." He spoke yesterday, minutes after he received one of nine Purple Heart medals awarded at welcome-home ceremonies for 130 members of the Olney-based Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 115th Infantry Regiment.

EVENT ALL BREED DOG SHOW The Maryland Kennel Club holds its 94th All Breed Dog Show on Sunday. The competition includes more than 1,600 dogs from more than 140 breeds -- from the toy poodle to the great Dane. The dogs will first compete within their breed, and then move on to the best-in-group competition. The winners of the seven groups will then compete to see which dog is Best in Show. ....................... The Maryland Kennel Club All Breed Dog Show is Sunday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Fifth Regiment Armory, 219 W. 29th St. Admission is $5; $3 for children ages 6-12 and seniors.

Wanna put on a show, but having trouble finding props and costumes? Theatre Hopkins could have the answer to your problems. Forced to vacate its longtime home in the Merrick Barn at the Johns Hopkins University to make room for the university's undergraduate theater courses, Theatre Hopkins is holding a sale of costumes, props and memorabilia from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday in the Mattin Center's F. Ross Jones Building on the Homewood campus, 3400 N....

It's been described as a cross between a church and the space shuttle because it combines a spiritual mission with fancy technology. It's the new kid on the block, even though it's been in the same place for 67 years. And it's one more sign that Montgomery County - resolutely suburban and within an hour's drive from two great cities - rapidly is becoming a force in the arts world. The official opening last week of the sparkling new 429-seat performing space at the Olney Theatre Center embraces all of these seeming dichotomies.

A classic returns When actress Carolyn Pasquantonio's Helen Keller speaks her legendary character's first words in William Gibson's The Miracle Worker at Olney Theatre Center on Tuesday, they will be among the first words ever spoken on the company's brand new Mainstage. Director Jim Petosa has said he deliberately chose a familiar American classic to inaugurate the $8.5 million, 429-seat theater. Also familiar will be the many Olney regulars in the cast. In addition to Pasquantonio, these include Marybeth Wise as Keller's teacher, Annie Sullivan, and Helen Hedman and James Slaughter as Keller's parents.

Two plays that examine the consequences of differing attitudes toward homosexuality in wartime - one set aboard a World War II troop ship and the other about a genius code breaker from the same era - are daring to rock the boat at Olney Theatre Center. Neal Bell's Somewhere in the Pacific and Snoo Wilson's Lovesong of the Electric Bear are part of the annual politically edgy Potomac Theatre Festival. And while neither script is an unqualified success, both are receiving stirringly intense productions that leave you thinking long after the actors have taken their final bows.

Love, death, jealousy, obsession, violence - these are at the heart of Bizet's Carmen. Distill the four-hour opera down to its essence - as Peter Brook and his collaborators have done in their 80-minute adaptation - and presumably these core characteristics become more intense. But director Jim Petosa's production at Olney Theatre Center is surprisingly lacking in intensity. Despite a strong lead performance - powerfully acted as well as sung - by Stephanie Chigas, La Tragedie de Carmen has an almost clinical feel.

When it comes to the performing arts, as with many things in life, sometimes less is more. Olney Theatre Center is embracing that philosophy with its production of La Tragedie de Carmen, Peter Brook's 1981 minimalist adaptation of Georges Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen. Opera, in general, can have a tendency to scare off the uninitiated - with potential audiences being intimidated by seemingly grandiose music, drawn-out plots and foreign lyrics - and Carmen is the "grandest of all 19th-century grand opera," said Jim Petosa, Olney's artistic director.